Beautifully written story about the closure of a famous New York restaurant

Moving, beautiful, sad, wonderful piece of writing by Gabrielle Hamilton — chef and owner of New York restaurant Pruce — on the New York Times magazine, about what the lockdown means for her and her restaurant, but really what it means for everybody in New York and big gentrifying cities, and what it means for everyone working in the food industry. An incredible piece of writing that really deserves all the buzz it is getting. My favourite bit:

Prune is in the East Village because I’ve lived in the East Village for more than 30 years. I moved here because it was where you could get an apartment for $450 a month. In 1999, when I opened Prune, I still woke each morning to roosters crowing from the rooftop of the tenement building down the block, which is now a steel-and-glass tower. A less-than-500-square-foot studio apartment rents for $3,810 a month.

The girl who called about brunch the first day we were closed probably lives there. She is used to having an Uber driver pick her up exactly where she stands at any hour of the day, a gel mani-pedi every two weeks and award-winning Thai food delivered to her door by a guy who braved the sleet, having attached oven mitts to his bicycle handlebars to keep his hands warm. But I know she would be outraged if charged $28 for a Bloody Mary.

And this one:

And God, the brunch, the brunch. The phone hauled out for every single pancake and every single Bloody Mary to be photographed and Instagrammed. That guy who strolls in and won’t remove his sunglasses as he holds up two fingers at my hostess without saying a word: He wants a table for two. The purebred lap dogs now passed off as service animals to calm the anxieties that might arise from eating eggs Benedict on a Sunday afternoon. I want the girl who called the first day of our mandated shut down to call back, in however many months when restaurants are allowed to reopen, so I can tell her with delight and sincerity: No. We are not open for brunch. There is no more brunch.

Read of the week, hands down. I am sure many people already told Hamilton the same thing, but I believe there is enough talent here that we can expect a second successful career in writing if indeed the restaurant remains sadly closed after all this.